Comments on: Disable Automatic Termination of Apps in Mac OS X Lion & Mountain Lion

By: Lavanta

Lavanta — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 19:14:59 +0000

Try Jiggler as a workaround. It jiggles the cursor at user defined intervals to avoid screen/computer going to sleep.

By: CL75

CL75 — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 18:34:00 +0000

First, the important details: I’m on Lion 10.7.5, I’ve tried both:

defaults write -g NSDisableAutomaticTermination -bool yes
defaults write -g NSDisableAutomaticTermination -int 1

…I also have both computer sleep and display sleep set to “never” in Energy Saver preferences, the “put hard disk to sleep when possible” box is also unchecked, and yet… after an hour or so of inactivity, Lion quits all applications, logs out, and goes to sleep.

Now, the rant: This is super annoying for several reasons. For example, I’m trying to update Xcode, which, as we all know is about a 4-5 hour download. Well, Lion shuts itself down, so I can’t update! What, I have to hold Lion’s hand the entire 5 hours? It’s the stupidest thing one can imagine. You would think, at the very least, that the “geniuses” at Apple would have programmed Lion to recognize when an update is taking place and NOT shut down during such a time. But, no.

Like Tim above and many others, I’ve been getting increasingly frustrated with Apple, ever since Lion.

By: zav

zav — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 17:36:07 +0000

I just set up some new Mountain Lion Macs and made sure to issue the command and can verify that it works.

Try the commands below one at a time in the Terminal and open TextEdit and close the open document and see if the app still auto quits. Good luck.

defaults write -g NSDisableAutomaticTermination -bool yes
defaults write -g NSDisableAutomaticTermination -int 1

By: Kelly

Kelly — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 19:04:22 +0000

This is EXACTLY why I am searching… and I tried it.. It didn’t work… maybe I’m not doing it right, but it appears pretty straight forward…

anyone else able to shed some insight?

By: Paul

Paul — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 22:01:21 +0000

Is that what’s happening to iTunes?

I’m streaming a video from iTunes and after 30 minutes the video stop and the machine is logged out.

Automatic App termination? I don’t know.

By: Garrett

Garrett — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 23:01:24 +0000

“At the least, why can’t they give us a pref pane to turn these features on and off?”

Open System Preferences. Click General. Check the box labeled “Ask to keep changes when closing documents.”

By: Steve

Steve — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 03:33:22 +0000

Applications must declare that they support (or don’t) Automatic Termination. It sounds like a bug in Oracle SQLDeveloper that they declare support for it, but don’t actually make it work right.

I’d file a bug report with Oracle. In the meantime, you can always open the SQLDeveloper Info.plist file and set the Automatic Termination flag to NO (which it sounds like is what Oracle should have done, if they can’t support it right).

By: Steve

Steve — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 03:30:04 +0000

Stopping processes that aren’t doing any work and have no remaining user interface, to clear up memory for apps that you actually are using? This is the exact opposite of bloatware.

By: José

José — Thu, 17 May 2012 16:05:17 +0000

Wow!
What a coincidence! I just started a tread at Apple Support Forums asking for help with an issue that (I think) most likely is related to the discussed here.

The issue is something that was bothering me and is mentioned here:
-Quit apps remain working in the background (and) using machine resources.-

Resources that I bought from Apple (read, the top notch iMac at the store), and from a ram online store (16 GB. The max capacity). Resources that no matter what, Apple is taking the right to decide how much, when and where to use it!

(I have seen this happening with iCal, Preview, TextEdit, QuickTime)

My question is:
Will the command shown above (also) allow me to “terminate” the app process when quitting it?
If not, Is there a similar command to terminate and app when quit?

Thank you!

My (unsolved) thread in Apple Forum: https://discussions.apple.com/message/18411009#18411009
There is an interesting article from last year here: http://arstechnica.com/apple/2011/07/mac-os-x-10-7/8/

By: pinta_vodki

pinta_vodki — Thu, 17 May 2012 11:46:21 +0000

Hm, I remember how I thought it would be an annoying function, but actually after I bought Lion I’ve completely forgotten there is this auto termination, only this post reminded me.

How come you can be annoyed by it? I’ve never noticed any slowing down or anything, even when I’ve run out of RAM. How can one notice that the app has been terminated?

By: Tim

Tim — Wed, 16 May 2012 22:14:21 +0000

Honestly, are Mac users simply losing brain cells by the minute? I’ve been a Mac person since 1987. Never had a problem with colored icons in the sidebar or keeping track of documents. I know how to manage my own workflows, thank you. It was never that hard to figure out how to get things done. I never met a single person who said, “ya, jeez, I’m constantly forgetting to save changes.”

So where do the current crop of Apple programmers get their sense of how people operate? Their vision is myopic, to say the least. They have no sense that “manual control” may be necessary?

As a simple example, I like to use Numbers. Sometimes I need to open a spreadsheet and tinker with some figures, just to see some scenarios for certain data I work with. I have no need, desire, or intention of saving those changes or keeping some archived record of them. I just need a quick look at it all. But the autosave feature – or at least the way it seems to present itself to me – seems to want to remember what I did in spite of it all. I don’t want it to re-open with those changes, and I don’t want to go hunting for the version that should have otherwise gone unchanged in the first place. It slows my workflow considerably. (I eventually reverted to the previous version of iWork that does not have these Lion “benefits.”)

At the least, why can’t they give us a pref pane to turn these features on and off? Even some of the shareware that tries to solve these “features” is not always successful.

I stay with Apple out of familiarity and the fact that the competition does not offer me an attractive alternative. But it’s certainly not out of loyalty anymore.

By: Lemmy/user22760

Lemmy/user22760 — Wed, 16 May 2012 17:14:20 +0000

Nah… I’m the (now deleted) user (‘user22760′) who posted the tip on StackExchange and that was a couple of days before I also posted it on Apple’s forum (which was yesterday)…

Sorry for causing so much confusion!

Anyroad, can I have a prize for my truly *groundbreaking* discovery now? ;-p

By: Lemywinks

Lemywinks — Wed, 16 May 2012 16:00:40 +0000

Yes this came from Apple Support forums, not StackExchange they just posted it. Here is the original link from Lemmy:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3672427?start=30&tstart=0

By: vdiv

vdiv — Wed, 16 May 2012 14:43:54 +0000

…and this, Ladies and Gentlemen, is what we call bloatware.

By: Lemmy/user22760

Lemmy/user22760 — Wed, 16 May 2012 08:10:06 +0000

Try substituting the “-g” part of the above command with the plist name of the app. Should work. Something like “defaults write com.oracle.sqldeveloper NSDisableAutomaticTermination -bool yes”.